Floating around Kochi
Fort Kochi lies off the mainland of Ernakalum, with silly cheap ferries shuttling between it and the other nearby islands. All the European colonialists had their time running the show here at some time, leaving a legacy of European architecture, churches and restaurant menus. I played some cricket with local kids in the park, willing me to hit the ball ‘like Chris Cairns does’ over those trees and football in the evening. At the barber I got my hair buzzed as Indian men popped in and out for a mo trim. Chinese fishing nets that need 4+ men to operate pull in catches that are served up at the seaside.
I smiled on the inside when I read Romana’s email – she’d not unusually changed her plans and was in town. And not unusually again, we walked straight into the middle of a festival at the Shiva temple. Music and dance and fireworks (of minumum beauty but maximum bang). 3 giant tuskers were the centrepiece, cloaked in gold headresses. Close enough to be sneezed on. Close enough to be trampled under. Beautiful. Fueled by sweet Chai for the pigrims and sugarcane for the elephants, the procession continued on past 3am.
We moved to nearby Vypen Island on visiting Radhakrishna’s small Ashram. Radhakrishna (Swami, teacher) is a friend of Romana’s sister and well known to everyone here. Out of his small Ashram is taught Ayerveda massage and healing, yoga, kalkari matial arts, and small wisdoms. He lent us his hut on Anayl beach – basic, no power or water, but still standing after the tsunami. Unlike the grass hut that was swept away next door. Destruction here though was not near the magnitude that you’ve seen on TV.
We had a beach out the front and backwaters out the back. The Backwaters are the natural canel network that flow through these parts of Kerala. Curious locals invited themselves around the porch anytime; to make polite small talk (the limit of their English), cut us down water coconuts, or just to hang out, kind of naive to any notion of privacy. But warm.
We swum morning, noon and night. I bodysurfed a wave in too far and faceplanted a mock bindi scrape of blood on my forehead. One night we slept on the beach, much softer than the bamboo mats on the hut’s concrete floor. That night was a full moon, and one month since the tsunami. Hundreds of ambiently lit crabs scuttled on the shore’s hard sands. We were prepared, though no less surprised when we woke to the unfiltered stares of fisherman. We took part in the early morning yoga session at the ashrum – myself as inflexible as a plank of wood, Swarmi bending like a pipecleaner man. I took a traditional Keralan Ayevedic massage. 2 men rigourously swept across my body in pummeling stokes. The home prepared oils bit deep but soothingly into my muscles. A steaming finished me off.
Gender separation was striking in Kerala. In buses and ferries women are strictly at the front, men at the back. When Romana would pay, I’d sometimes be given the change. You were married by association in a restaurant. Just for kicks, I’d sometimes pass the bill straight across to Romana, and watch the whites of their eyes widen. A newspaper ad read “When you book your flight with us, your wife travels for half the price”. The man has the money, the woman retires shyly in the background. And the Untouchables shuffle around on their hunches, lower than everyone, hands out.
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‘Truth is a pathless land’ ~ Krishnamurti
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